Survival of the Fittest

I taught a new class this week. Another English teacher asked me to lead a writing workshop. I was very excited about it and spent much of the weekend planning our activities. I will lead a two-part workshop to two separate groups of students. I lead part one for the first group on Tuesday and will work with the second group tomorrow morning.

The first session was wonderful. It was a small group of nine students who are taking the class to prepare for the TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language). I learned a little about the writing tasks thanks to Google. Test takers have two different writing tasks. In one they react to a question and must make a persuasive argument and in the second they listen to a short lecture, read an academic text and write about the main points.

We focused on the independent writing in the first part of the workshop. I asked students to consider the impact of globalization in their community. We worked prewriting, composing and revising together. I regret that we didn't have much time for revising so I think we'll do a bit more work with that in our second session.

On my long bus ride home I felt great. My mind was racing, thinking about what had really worked in the class and what I'll change with the next group so it's more successful. I'll allow more time for revising our works. I think I might even dedicate more time in the second part of the workshop for revisions of the students' essays. I should do individual conferences, too.

What have I learned about teaching in my months at the university of Cuenca? I'm grateful for all the lesson planning I did in graduate school, not that I use those lessons, but thinking out and documenting the plans was so helpful. I admit that my lesson plans don't often get typed out nicely like they did in school, but I have a notebook and lots of scraps of paper saved that I will bring back with me. You'd think with all the time I have on my hands I'd create a portfolio of my Ecuadorian lesson plans. Might come in handy some day.

I walk into a classroom with a complete lesson plan and sometimes it's perfect. Sometimes my plan does a big belly flop in class, my failure witnessed by a roomful of Ecuadorian college students and a thankfully polite and sympathetic teacher but most of the time it falls somewhere in the middle. I've had a bit more success as time goes on and I'm learning about what usually works. However, it's like baking - depending on the altitude, atmosphere and time of day what works one day with one group of students crashes and burns the next day.

This is what tends to work:

• Don't talk to the whole class for too long
• Plan multiple shorter activities
• Give instructions, have the class start and remind students of what they're supposed to be doing after the activity has started
• Smile
• Ask the students questions
• Move around the room
• Suggest questions for students to ask their peers
• When something works, go with it
• Keep the teachers happy
• Keep the class active and engaged at all times
• Speak slowly and clearly and never talk at the board
• Encourage questions and keep your pledge to answer all questions honestly and to the best of my ability
• Bring homemade cookies to the last class
• Write personal notes on papers - not just correction marks

I've received some really positive feedback from a handful of teachers and students. Most of the time I hear nothing at all and in the beginning months I felt like I was flying a bit blind. One student told a friend, who relayed his comment to me, that he really enjoys my classes and feels he learns more from me than from his usual classroom teacher. I can't think of anything I'd have rather heard!

From time time I first arrived in Ecuador I've had very mixed feelings about Ecuador. I've been trying to get to the bottom of that. I expected to have a wonderful time. I'm an optimist, I can find the good in everything. In the early months I felt uncomfortable and out of place living in the boardinghouse. Maybe uncomfortable and out of place everywhere. I've struggled to find where I fit in. I found a place to be, and I don't simply mean a place to live. I did that too. I met people, developed some routines, learned how to get along. What was and still is missing is the feeling of being in the presence of my people who know who I am and understand me.

When we meet people we have to find a way to understand them in a short period of time. With our oldest and dearest friends, our lovers and our family members we have more time to do this, but most of the time we meet people, we take what we know about them and we develop an idea of who this person is based on certain tips, where we met them, what they're doing, what they look like, who introduced them, etc. It may seem superficial but I think it's what we have to do. We can't become intimately acquainted with everyone who crosses our paths.

I have found that I've had a difficult time connecting with people in Ecuador because I don't, in oh so many ways, conform to expectations. I am that puzzle piece that got swept up into the wrong box. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, not in the least. I'm over that now that I'm down to my last couple of months in Ecuador, I'm trying to figure out what's been going on and trying to account for the strange feelings I've experienced.

My life here affords me freedom to be who I am and question what that is since most of the assumptions don't apply. I think I've evolved somewhat, adapted to my environment in order to survive.